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StartsWithABang (3485481) writes "Forget going to space and seeing its roundness, forget Magellan and his circumnavigation of the globe. Forget even Christopher Columbus, even though you wouldn't be alone if you were taught that in school. Contrary to popular belief, this question wasn’t settled in the 1400s or 1500s, but more than 2,000 years ago, in the ancient world! And what’s perhaps most amazing? It was done using nothing more than the Sun, and it measured the size of the Earth, too. An amazing historical-and-scientific read, along with one more reason that Columbus should be mostly forgotten, "His estimates, that he used to convince others that one could sail from Europe directly to India (were the Americas non-existent), were absurdly small! Had the Americas not existed, Columbus and his crew surely would have starved before reaching Asia!""